The Price of Sugar

Published: October 8, 1995

To the Editor:

Your Sept. 29 front-page article states that the sugar price-support program "operates at virtually no cost to taxpayers." Rather "consumers pay the tab." Who are consumers but taxpayers? And the tab is exceptionally high.

According to the General Accounting Office, consumers pay $1.4 billion more a year for sugar because of this program.

The taxpayer tab doesn't stop there; artificially high prices for sugar force commercial sweetener users to use corn syrup instead in their products. The makers of corn syrup, especially the Archer Daniels Midland Company, buy the corn at federally subsidized prices, again dipping into the public pocket.

Republicans, trumpeting the benevolence of the market when it suits their deregulatory agenda, turn on this principle when a powerful interest is involved. Why not let the market decide what the price of sugar should be? ERIC L. KEISMAN JR. Stanford, Calif., Oct. 3, 1995